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It's mentioned below, but I would really like to suggest The Hold Steady to reddit for its Bruce Springsteen-esque rock n'roll fun with well thought out lyrics. The frontman doesn't actually sing ever, he just yells it out. Pretty good stuff

I think it's also said below, but 'alternative' music (the grunge/punk-pop rock in the 90s that weren't so popular then but overdone now), isn't alternative anymore. The alternative now is what people seem to call 'indie' which I still don't understand how that became a genre.

Of the 50% of those artists I recognize, they were all pretty big in the 90s, which is kind of funny to me as I thought we're talking about new music. Maybe the 50% of those names I don't recognize are all newer though.

EDIT: Yeah I googled a few of those names and they look pretty recent. Sorry I mostly only listen to a lot of minimal these days (not too much rock stuff) so Apparat and Moderat were the only newer names I recognized on your list.

From that list, based on a like of 90s alternative, I think Tame Impala is your best bet for instant likeability, though there are a lot of good things there to check out. (My personal favorite is Grizzly Bear, though they're usually pretty chill - too chill for some people)

You can stream a lot of full albums from the artists listed on grooveshark.com as well, don't forget.

Almost none of these bands sound anything like "Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins in the 90s" like the OP said. Most of these are either incredibly slow/mellow douchebags with beards strumming away on acoustic guitars or "bands" featuring 4 guys with beards playing synthesizers. This is not what he wants. In fact, its the complete opposite.

after being utterly obsessed with his first record i thought his second one was massively dissapointing. am i alone in thinking sometimes it would be better for everyone if after making some piece of art which you are never likely to replicate - especially if you are just going to do a slightly watered down version as our friend and compadre here has done... WE TAKE HIS HANDS

Upvote for mentioning !!! pronounced "chk chk chk". Indie points for me, bitch. /sarcasm. And i'm going to see Crystal Castles in NYC in August. Fuck yes. You've got good taste. I've never heard of Amadou And Mariam, Jamie T, or Tame Impala. The rest are all good. Saved for later

Bat For Lashes is interesting stuff. And although they get dumped on for being popular, Arcade Fire is really good. Just for pure fun, you can't beat Broken Social Scene.

The Decemberists just keep getting better - The Hazards Of Love may be one of the best albums of the past decade or two. I've been listening to it for a year, and I'm still impressed. Somehow I managed to miss out on Porcupine Tree for all of these years, but they're still going strong.

These are all solid rock-based groups. If you want to go a bit farther astream, there are groups like Daft Punk, and The Fiery Furnaces. Sit down and carefully listen to Blueberry Boat. Trust me, this is Good Music.

Check out some of the past reddit 'best of (x)' lists. There's some questionable stuff, some truly awful stuff, but also some gems.

Also, to be perfectly clear, I am NOT a fan of rap, in any form. That said, Mos Def is pretty damned talented, and worth listening to a few songs. And since I've gone down this path, it's only fair to mention beatboxing - something that didn't exist until after I finished high school (!!!). Check out Beardyman, and make sure you watch the whole set.

I'll be curious what you think of all of this stuff.

EDIT: Finally--just tonight--got around to listening to someone that's been on my 'to get to' list for a while, and did NOT dissappoint. Martina Topley-Bird. Hunt her down!

Its so weird, the other day I was listening to MGMT and then a Vampire Weekend song came on right afterwards and I thought to myself "wow, this is exactly a cross between 'Cherub Rock' and 'Even Flow'"

An overwhelmingly valid point, someone finally made me listen to the pixies, opened my mind, cheapened the sound and techniques of some bands. All music is based off of other music, they have to do something to make it their own.

yep, i'm in for recc's too. I do find good stuff on Pandora, but radio stations played better material back then. Muse, Killers, Strokes, Franz Ferdinand.. in the 'modern rock' genre, that's all I can come up with.

I'm sure people who grew up listening to Talking Heads and all that in the 80's were thinking "WTF" at pretty boys like Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam.

That said, the 90's did see a bunch of weird bands from the underground get coughed up. Primus, the Melvins and the Jesus Lizard all got on mainstream labels? The singer from Rapeman became the biggest producer around?

I think it's just that pop music (and many facets of culture in general) seem to cycle - notice how you're seeing bright neon and pink clothes on MTV these days? MIA, Rihanna's latest style, etc. That's late 80s/early 90s. Grunge is next, which is why the Pumpkins and Pearl Jam are sounding good again.

The real question is, is this a natural phenomenon or is it something that is manufactured by the record companies in order to make a second buck on their earlier investment. Or maybe it's some combination of both.

Haha it's true, but they've just taken an alternative approach to pushing music - they play songs during their reality and drama shows, while displaying the artist and song name at the bottom of the screen. It's an interesting slant. Also there's MTV2.

Marketing Television? I mean, all music videos ever were in the first place were ads for bands, making MTV and its kin basically glorified infomercial channels. So now they've diversified and are advertising more than just bands - for example, product placement is huge in music videos now - notice how they always show Kesha or whoever texting with a close-up of the phone? They're also creating marketable properties out of the reality show characters, and fomenting avid viewers (read: repeat customers).

Seriously though, the point is, there is no mainstream but what you choose now. Labels could have a stranglehold on people because it was pushed in a few areas, MTV, radio, mainstream record stores, rolling stone etc....

You don't have to go to seedy clubs in city to see some touring punk band and get hooked with some zine and tape trading scheme with 6th gen recordings.

Heck, all a band needs is a laptop, mic's and talent. Maybe not even that last one.

Yes you can access a plethora of music online and it takes very little capital to record a record these days, but the bottom line (for me) is that people still watch MTV and buy music in stores. The content of the primary media conduits are not user-determined. Even when people download torrents, the majority of the seeds are for mainstream stuff.

I'm curious - do you not think that grunge is about to get big again? Or do you believe that it is, but credit that occurrence to something other than the entertainment industry?

There definitely seems to be a cycle going on. In the early 00's there was definitely a 70's thing going on, mostly in clothing styles, but also in music. More recently, the 80's came back in a big way in the pop world. And it could be said that the rise of indie music coincides with the rise of underground music in the late 80's that let into the grunge scene. So yeah, I could see grunge or something similar catching on again soon.

I'd say it's mainly a difference of what you want out of the music that you listen to, and there's not only nothing wrong with that, I personally believe that nobody should be able to put anyone else down.

I'm 46 and I can honestly say I don't remember a better time for new music. The 90s actually seemed to be one of the bleaker times. I always thought Pearl Jam was so-so, and then you started to get all that Creed and Limp Biscuit dominating the airwaves. The bands I liked more (Superchunk, NeutralMilk Hotel, Mudhoney, Pavement) didn't get much air play. The great bands from the 80s (The Replacements , the Pixies, the Pogues) were all breaking up.

Now with the internet, various blogs, Last.FM and Pandora, as well as all the less strictly legal means, you can accesss music like never before. Saying there's nothing as good as Pearl Jam smacks of excess rigidity and not trying very hard.

Edit: forgot to write that there are great bands now who are more directly in the lineage of the of the 90s alternative sound. Try the Hold Steady or Titus Andronicus or even No Age.

I think the main issue here is that the genre "alternative" has further progressed into the main stream, giving us "alternative" bands like the Kings of Leon or Coldplay. Good artistic rock would probably be categorized as indie rock today.

Also, anybody claiming the Kings of Leon are indie will be shot. No exceptions.

Indie music is basically music by bands signed to independent record labels (what alternative rock was back in the 80s). It doesn't matter if the music is any good or not. The alternative genre has been mainstream ever since Nirvana/Pearl Jam etc signed on to major record labels and released multi-platinum selling records. The term "indie rock" is similarly starting to get fuzzy as well with bands like the Decemberists having signed on to a major record label but still having an "indie" sound.

Totally agree. Right now there are so many different bands creating and evolving genres that you would almost certainly be able to find a niche to enjoy for yourself. People forget that those alternative bands in the 90's were not banking on someone else's success, they made that music popular themselves. Bands like Coldplay aren't "alternative", they're "pop" based off of 90's alternative music. I've discovered more great, new music in the last couple of years than I can listen to!

Shoot yourself now, you've gotten old. I'm 50 and have avoided what's happened to you like the plague. I can barely stand to hear the music I heard growing up in the 70's on the radio. Not because a bunch of it wasn't great, but because I've heard it way, way too much. I'd much rather go see Arcade Fire or MGMT than Aerosmith. There's a lot of great music being made right now whatever your taste and there always has been. Drink it in!. Cross section of what's currently on my mp4 player - Amy Winehouse, Broken Social Scene, Buzzcocks, Explosions in the Sky, Juana Molina, Miles Davis, Neutral Milk Hotel, Horace Silver, Yeah Yeah Yeas.

I was sitting in the office one day and a song was playing on the radio. It was catchy and it had a breakdown with a pretty cool sounding guitar. I was like what the hell is this, for a new band this sounds pretty decent.

The song kept playing and I realized it was Good by Better Than Ezra.

So yeah.. Smashing Pumpkins & Pearl Jam sounds amazing compared to whats on the radio... There is a lot of new good music but it's all like blog stuff, whats on the radio is terrible though.

No I think you have a selective memory EXACTLY the same way the adults did when you were a kid and EXACTLY the same way the kids now will when they're your age. This pattern has and will repeat itself forMotherLovingEver in both directions of time.

That's the problem. In the 90s you didn't have to do any hunting. e.g. Alice in Chains, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc. (I know they are not all the same genre but they did all get played on KROQ*.)

Hold on now, let me be the contrarian: I could turn on alternative radio in the 90s and hear those bands. (still can, of course, as 'oldies') The ratio of crap to good has gone up, IMO. If I have to hunt around, that means the good stuff isn't rising to the top as much as it once did.

Trust me, this used to bug me a lot. Back in the early 90's every time you turned on the radio or MTV it was full of awesome bands. Why can't it be like that anymore right?!

Well unfortunately unless you're listening to satellite or Internet radio, that's just the way things are going to be. The only reason why those bands got big back then were because record companies got behind that movement. Maybe it'll happen again, who knows?

Just be happy that you can say that you lived during a time where mainstream music was actually cool and attitude/fashion/thinking surrounding it was laid back and cool as shit. I just feel bad for kids now who were never able to experience that (not like they realize it)

You know who else probably said the same thing? The generation before us about grunge/alternative. They probably hated what was current then in the same manner we say we hate what's current here and the kids today (get off my lawn) will hate what comes out in this decade. I think it's called 'getting older'.

No, there is a very big difference, and it doesn't take an old person to notice it. I was a toddler when grunge was big and it didn't take me long at all to notice that the mainstream music being sold to my generation was absolute shit compared to the stuff I'd hear on the radio all the time when I was little - Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., etc.

All the mainstream pop sounds the same and they all have essentially the same manufactured lyrics (how many different songs do there need to be about how some unoriginal chick's lips are "sweet like candy" or some shit like that?), all the mainstream rock consists of either post-pop-punk-vomit or post-grunge-Creed-Nickelback-afterbirth. There's nothing new in the mainstream music scene anymore, just aural abominations recycled from what was at one point original and exciting. The only musical points of interest right now are in the various factions of the independent music scene.

You're exactly the kind of person who I feel bad about in regards to this. You were a toddler in the early 90's - you didn't get to experience that whole scene. There was this brief but awesome time where everything was catered to snarky, intelligent, 20-somethings ... and it sucks that you may never get to experience that.

Back then we had Liquid Television on MTV, now you have The Hills. It was like the mainstream catered to the reddit crowd then instead of catering to the Perez Hilton crowd like they do now...

Thats an interesting point, but maybe it's just that there's more variety out there, making it harder to find stuff. I think there's a lot more genres nowadays than there was say 20 years ago.

The stuff that i like generally gets no radio play except on some internet stations, so i have to read forums, local arts papers, blogs and use recommendation engines. I still find lots of stuff that blows my mind all the time though.

20 Dollar by M.I.A.). I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard of her, but I hope the future of popular music looks like Kala.

As so many other people have said, Modest Mouse. A good chunk of reddit's considers them their ideal alternative band, even if two of their best three albums were from the 90's, The Moon and Antarctica is from 2000 and a great album. If you've never heard it, please do yourself and torrent it or something! Even Good News for People Who Love Bad News has a lot of good songs. Dance Hall and Bury Me With It are both great.

When I heard Modest Mouse for the first time, I didn't even know music could sound like that (it's my nostalgia band, certainly... I can't imagine finding a band I like more that hasn't existed yet).

If you're looking for bands you can rock out to without having to suppress your urge to eat babies, might I recommend:

Daisies by Fang Island (you can skip to 1:51 on that video if you want to skip to the actual song).

Billy deciding to use the Smashing Pumpkins name after the original breakup of the band was such a desperate, awful move. Now that Jimmy is no longer in the band, he seriously needs to end it. Dude wrote his best stuff on LSD, not Zoloft.

If you think the 90s were the pinnacle of music, then you aren't looking hard enough. I have a lot of 90s stuff. It was a great decade for hardcore and midwest emo type stuff. But there are just as many great bands out now. The alternative scene does suck though.

Modern rock is awful. I have not heard a single song from any album in the last 10 years that would make me want to buy that album, except for Dream Theater. One of the major factors to modern rock sucking is that artists want to feel more hardcore than the bands that preceded them. Eventually that just isn't really possible, which led to the creation of those idiotic death metal bands. I love metal and pretty much all forms of rock, but as a musician i can say that i am concerned about the direction music has taken in the last decade.

I know how you feel. I've been really impressed with the direction music has taken over the last decade, but in the last few of years, with bands like Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors becoming the face of popular rock music, it seems like "indie" music is far too mainstream to have much of an indie edge, and to me 90s alt rock is starting to sound more vital. Even the stuff that would have been considered soft, like Nirvana Unplugged, is something of a shot in the arm by comparison (exhibit A).

There is a shit load of new genres and sounds being created right now. This whole decade has been golden for experimental music and styles. Try browsing through similar artists of the bands or styles that you like now on Last FM, I find that is a great way to find new bands that aren't peddled by the commercial music industry as hard.

I've noticed that the older I get, the more I have to fight against nostalgia (which is perfectly reasonable, given I have so much more to be nostalgic about), and that it's an insidious evil that needs to be curb-stomped into submission.

Yes, there were a smattering of terrific bands in the '90s who made equally terrific albums, but to treat Pearl Jam's Ten or Nirvana's Nevermind as Milestones Never To Be Equaled is hubris run amok, a common failing among those whose childhoods and adolescence were formed by the songs coming out of the radio in the last decade of the 20th century. Nostalgia closes your ears and your mind; it weakens your critical faculties, and it means you'll become THAT guy: the older uncle at family reunions who you laughed at when he said music died with disco? The guy whose CD collection consisted nearly entirely of Greatest Hit collections from bands that broke up around the time you born? Don't become that guy. Don't be the person who sits back and says, wistfully but with a whiff of pretentiousness, "Ah, they just don't make like that anymore!"
Because it's bullshit.

Music hasn't gotten worse. There is plenty of amazing music out there, and the independent music scene today is probably as vibrant and exciting as its ever been. The difference is just that the music industry, and how fans find and hear music, have changed dramatically.

Sad fact is, you can't expect to turn on the radio or MTV in 2010 and find something you like. MTV channel-drifted themselves into irrelevance, radio got eaten up by satellite and the iPod, and the internet snuck right up and became the dominant medium for music. Read blogs, sign up for last.fm and check out recommended bands, see what other people are listening to. It's not perfect, or as easy as just tuning in, but it has a lot of advantages of its own.

Also, not to rain on your parade too much - PJ & SP were great - but try not to fall into the trap of thinking the past was all great because you have the ability to retroactively filter out the crap. For every great 90s alternative act, there were a dozen Candleboxes, Ugly Kid Joes, and others so shitty no one even remembers their stupid names.

Yep. Even pop music used to be kind of cool - The Carpenters, for example. Were they cheesy? Yes. But they actually had talent and didn't have to rely on teams of writers, stripper dance routines and ridiculously over-exposing outfits to get people to buy their music/concert tickets. They were actually musicians.

Ben Lee is someone who jumps to mind as writing whimsical pop that I quite enjoy. Most of the pop I remember from other eras isn't that bad as the truly awful stuff just isn't around any more. But remember Hanson? Hanson and Bieber aren't that different.

Simple answer for that. <16 year old audience is huge and now with the internet it is much easier to tap into that market. Imagine the average YouTuber age... Now what music do they listen to? Exactly. Most 14-16 year olds have horrible taste in music.

It's a crapshoot, really. Think about all the crappy bands that were around the same time as Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins. I can't think of that many because, in my opinion, music wasn't as 'available' as it is now. You can jam on the web nowadays and find shitty garage bands from toledo. There is no filtering process to separate the good from the bad like there was 20 years ago.

Another point to add is that hindsight is 20/20, the entire discography of pearl jam is impressive, especially when matched up against a band's most recent releases. The age of the listeners is another highly influential factor as their basis of musical enjoyment is from another time period with different ideas and challenges.

I have to agree with you regarding Pearl Jam. Their music used to be awesome full of story line , good solos but now their music have become much more commercialized like the most big acts of that era.

More music is been produced now as compared to the history but in between this process the quality has declined but every now and then a great band comes and has the same talent that reflects what we had lost due to commercialization of the good old music scene

Oh man...I loved the smashing pumpkins so much. So much. They defined the 90's to me. I miss being so devoted and so in love with an interest. But I couldn't get enough of them back in the day. I washed dishes in the cafeteria to save money to fly to chicago for their final shows. I entered their contests. I was very active on their online message boards. I made a lot of friends within the fan base who are still friends today. I miss them so much.

And no, the current bastardization of SP is NOT SP, no matter what name they go under.

I agree with the OP. Maybe I'm old (35), but new music just doesn't do it for me. I haven't seen one new band that comes even close to 90's-era Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, or Tool.

On that note, the new Alice in Chains isn't so bad, actually. The new singer isn't Layne Staley by any means, but he's pretty good (although I find he tries a bit too hard to emulate Layne on a few songs).

I saw this thread and knew when I looked into it, there would be lists of indie bands that aren't even remotely close to the alternative bands of the 90s.

I think the issue is the definition of 'alternative' has gone soft where it used to be heavier.

Of the bands and artists I listen to, the only one I'll post here without fear of downvotes of "THAT'S MAINSTREAM CRAP" is Melissa Auf Der Maur. She was in Hole and toured with Smashing Pumpkins for a bit.

Stop listening to music with guitars if you're bored with it. Or start listening to metal. Or orchestral music. Or jazz (etc).

If you don't like many of the new bands that have come out over the past decade, don't worry. There are more songs and more sunsets and sunrises to enjoy them with than there are days in your life. You just need to find the ones that connect with you at this point in your life.

Ever notice how the best alternative music was written while you were in High School?

Not really. I felt like it actually began sucking right as I entered high school (late 1995). I wasn't really into music when I was in middle school, so I was actually behind the times already throughout my high school years.

Anyone else sick of the popularity (lol) of indie music and the annoying girly preteen boy vocals whining about shallow shit like their girlfriends or their clothes with no depth or meaning to the lyrics?

Fuck. Bring back manly vocals and lyrics with riddles and double-meanings.